*Courtesy Of The Wrestle Talk Podcast With Joe & Rene* Check out the latest episode from our friends at The Wrestle Talk Podcast With Joe & Rene as PWO’s own Nick Guest Hosts for the first hour of the show, which features interviews with Victor Romanoff And Searcher. Link Below: […]

Notes In Observance – TNA Impact Wrestling 4/5/16: Revenge

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at ht bottom of the post.

(Aired 4/5/16)

Revenge

– TNA World Heavyweight Champion Drew Galloway has solidly built up credibility from beating a growing list of opponents, recently adding Jeff Hardy to it the week before, outlasting the daredevil at his own game. This show would feature the biggest wrench in Galloway’s Champion plans, as former Champ Matt Hardy vowed to get back his old gold. On the other side, Eric Young couldn’t live with Jeff still standing and looked to do something about that, evidenced by the opening video.

– It’s basic knowledge at this point that Young’s on his way out TNA’s door and at least he’s getting to go out as his best character – the “deranged psycho.” He came out (accompanied by Bram) for a Six Sides Of Steel match with Jeff, cutting a great angry pre-match promo about how he’d take Jeff’s “hillbilly neck” and piledrive it. Hardy came out with a table, but was subdued by the heels’ sudden rush attack, breaking him down before the bell even rang. It was a nice change of pace and built up the “stacking the odds” element that seem to dictate the pace of every Jeff match. The in-ring story continued to build upon this, climaxing with Jeff’s awe-inspiring Swanton Bomb from the top of the cage, putting EY through the table to win and get his “annual revenge.” Even more kudos to Jeff for working through this with an injured leg and all.

– The backstage segment with Maria, Dixie Carter and Knockouts Champion Gail Kim hyped the upcoming Knockouts Championship match while also answering the question of what’d happen between Maria’s candidate for #1 contender in Jade and Kim’s candidate in Madison Rayne. The verdict by Carter was that Kim would have to defend against both ladies and was tired of Maria brown-nosing her. Maria was pretty funny here.

– Jeff’s backstage “revenge” promo was a creepy flashback to his “internal thoughts” promos, but was at least more realistic here. Since it was about hyping the main event against Galloway and how he was going to be watching intently, we let this one slide.

– The in-ring “final word” segment with The Matt Hardy brand, Jeremy Borash and Galloway was also designed as last-minute talking main event hype. Both guys are polar opposites, so it was good to see them play off that. Hardy remained bitter and had the numbers advantage, while Galloway was out to defend his company. Of course, the final twist was Tyrus reminding everyone he had a World Title shot in the bag since he won Bound For Gold and might “cash in,” confusing his stablemates. At the same time, Tyrus did it in a way that wouldn’t had turned him face, only coming off as opportunistic.

– Good to see The Pope find some of his magic, as his backstage promo saw him ready for battle against Lashley, as he got the fight he finally wanted.

– Nice interaction backstage between Tyrus and Ethan Carter III, as they played upon their old history, while EC3 basically called him soulless just to remind him that despite his goals, “Karma was a Carter.” Good line. Certainly no love lost between them.

– The Lashley-Pope street fight went exactly like you’d expect, being a squash for Lashley in the beginning until Pope made a comeback in the second half upon a grasp of a kendo stick. However, that didn’t last long, as Lashley speared him to end it all. Lashley has been greatly booked as a juggernaut heel thus far and the post-match continued beatdown of Pope was nice, as it opened the door for a run-in by a suit-clad EC3, Lashley leaving the ring by then, which in turn, set up The Miracle’s blindside chair attack. The interaction between EC3 and Maria/Miracle was good, as we saw EC3 try to convince Miracle to “come back and finish the job,” while Miracle went on an awesome tirade where he compared EC3 to the people in that they couldn’t take on their own problems without excuses and bragged that EC3 was abandoned by everyone and it was his own fault, accepting EC3’s challenge but then postponing it to the following week. The brawl that followed that ended up spilling backstage and into the parking lot also helped advance things. It’s funny, we thought The Miracle was going to fade away, but his act is actually hotter by the week. His mic skills (almost reminds us of a fired-up CM Punk) have gotten consistently better too. He could be a Champion before the end of the year. It wouldn’t be unheard of. Anyways, this was also a solid way to set up the EC3-Miracle match booked for the following week.

– The Tyrus-Rockstar Spud backstage segment continued the notion that Tyrus was going all in for himself, even at the Matt Hardy Brand’s expense, ignoring Spud’s “paper plan” and assumption that Tyrus was winning the belt simply to hand it to Matt.

– The Knockouts Championship three-way between Champion Kim, Jade and Rayne was mostly clunky while it lasted, but luckily, all we remember was the great finish, where Maria physically interfered, knocking Kim off the top rope with the Knockouts Championship, allowing Jade to pin her to become new Champion. Jade may not be ready to hold gold, but it at least creates a good feud for us to root for Kim to get her belt back. After all, they did that thing where they mention the number of days of the Champion’s reign and that was always a red flag of an upcoming Title change.

– Galloway’s backstage promo gave us a good perspective of the main event happenings, with Tyrus’ decision in the loom and how he’d be ready whether it was just Matt or the both of them.

– The Gregory Shane Helms/X-Diviison Champion Trevor Lee promo was simple hype for their upcoming segment, as we’d look forward to Eddie Edwards’ decision to take on GSH as a partner for his World Tag Team Championship rematch clause.

– After Al Snow’s sinister backstage attack on Grado and Mahabali Shera the week prior, the backstage segment with Billy Corgan and Snow was an acceptable follow-up. Morgan played the authority figure who informed Snow that he was suspended for a week without pay and expected a public apology. Snow stood from the perspective that he loved the business and didn’t like anybody “just walking in.” We’re eager to see where this goes. Snow shows promise as a veteran pesky heel who also works behind the scenes and can get away with some stuff. Grado was described as Corgan as “out for maybe more than a month,” so maybe they’ll drag this out a bit.

– The in-ring segment with Lee, GSH, Edwards, World Tag Team Champions Beer Money and Decay started with Edwards’ decision, where he turned down GSH because he saw through his attempts to piggyback ride onto his success and wanted the rematch clause to be saved for his only partner, Davey Richards. We thought maybe the goal was to have Edwards accept and maybe have them win the belt before being turned on by GSH, also inadvertently setting up an Edwards-Lee program for the X-Division Championship, which would’ve also worked to bide time until Richards’ return. We’re not sure if maybe GSH/Lee will also be a tag team. BM came out to save Edwards, which then set up an interruption by Decay, who made their claim to want the Championships. With Bobby Roode also on his way out the door, it’s inevitable BM will drop the Titles, but the question is to who. The brawl afterwards was okay for what it was, setting up a match where BM would take on “any and all challengers with the belts on the line” as per their backstage promo that followed this.

– Matt’s backstage promo was solid, consistent with his bitter character and put over that his motto and “Brand” would prevail in the end, blaming Galloway for his problems and “Wife only having four pedicures a week now.” Funny. A brilliant visual here was Tyrus creeping in the background, walking slowly up to Matt, who then asked if he was ready.

– The main event TNA World Heavyweight Championship match between Champion Galloway and Matt Hardy was good as expected. Tyrus, who had to declare his cash-in before the match started, chose not to, causing speculation that it was simply a ruse the whole time. That part was eh, but the follow-up results din the great match. Matt pulled out every trick in the book to try to escape Champion, but Galloway was resilient and it actually built up his big comeback. Some good near-falls towards the end, where Jeff Hardy came out to alleviate the situation, eliminating Spud/Tyrus and allowing Galloway to win via the Iron Maiden submission. We wonder who’ll be next to take on Galloway, but it was all entertaining.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About Nicholas Jason Lopez

Just a 26 year-old Brooklynite. Nothing more, nothing less.
Currently Freelancing for The Bensonhurst Bean website in Brooklyn, he has also been published on sites such as Review Fix, College University of New York Athletic Conference, Dying Scene, Brooklyn News Service, All Media NY, BrooklynFans.com and Yahoo Voices.
He has also interned for The Home Reporter/Brooklyn Spectator based out of Brooklyn, NY.